Media Priorities

Cross-Posted from thatliberalmedia.com

Media Priorities In The War On Terror:

The September issue of the American Enterprise magazine has three interesting numbers that suggest what those priorities are.

The Medal of Honor, America's highest decoration for selfless valor, has been awarded only three times in the past three decades. On April 4 of this year, Army Sergeant First Class Paul Smith, a 33-year-old married man with two children, earned the latest medal, for high gallantry under fire during the initial invasion of Iraq at the cost of his life. (p. 13)

Judging by the numbers below, the US media did not see his story as nearly as important as the stories on Lynndie England, the court-martialed Abu Ghraib guard, or the false story of Koran abuse at Guantanamo.

Mentions in Major US Media
Lynndie England: 5,159
Koran abuse: 4,677
Paul Smith: 90

The American Enterprise author used the Lexis-Nexis database to search for the stories to get those counts. That isn't freely available to all of us, but you can do similar searches on most major newspapers and get similar results, if you want to check their numbers.